Video

Brennan: Do you know the date that the show was taped? I know that it was first aired on May 4, 1979.Schell: It was taped on Wednesday, May 2, 1979. So that would work with a Friday May 4 air date.Brennan: Was “Airwaves” performed at the beginning, or did the performance start straight with “Look Out California”?Schell: I honestly don’t recall the sequence. “Love Is Gonna Come At Last” was the single that was charted and in rotation at the time. Dynamically, it would seem logical to record that one first, but the show might have slotted the hit differently in editing.Brennan: Were there other songs performed but not taped or not aired?Schell: No, just the three.Brennan: What did you mean (when you mentioned earlier) that Joey didn’t finish playing? Can you elaborate further on that part of the story?Schell: Sugarman probably taped the equivalent of three or four shows that day. We were the last act to tape in a six- to eight-hour session. So from the wings throughout the day, we heard other artists — especially the headliners — do take after retake.
When our turn came, we cranked thru our three tunes fairly quickly — one or two takes each. The engineering was dreadful. Whatever the last song was, Joey reasonably believed we should be permitted to do it one more time. He kicked it off, the band followed, and the stage crew promptly killed the mains. And that, as they say in Hollywood, was a wrap. §§§

From a 2006 interview with Davis Everett Flanders:

DEF: ‘Love Is Gonna Come At Last’, the group’s hit at the time Midnight Special aired, was based around a 12-string guitar. Why wasn’t 12-string used in the video as it was in the recording?Schell: Good question! We rented a 12-string Rick (Rickenbacker) specifically to do the single on Midnight Special. Trouble was, when I plugged in the instrument sent over by the studio rentals, it didn’t play.
So the guitar roadie tore into it and announced shortly thereafter that the instrument’s electronics were hermetically sealed with what looked to be soda pop — silencing it for all practical purposes.DEF: Did that mean last-minute changes to the arrangement — not having the 12-string?Schell: Well, there’s a funny adjunct to the story along those lines: With the Rick out of the game, I sat down in the dressing room with my six-string and worked out a variation of the 12-string picking which, to my ear, more closely emulated the 12-string voicing than the original part played on six.
As luck would have it Joey walked by and, hearing my variation on his guitar work, stopped in to, shall we say, point out its incorrectness. (laughs) So, no — no changes to that part of the arrangement. Truth be told, in the end the mix that aired was so flawed, with instruments and voices drifting in and out, six versus twelve became almost a non-issue. §§§